Ann Weisgarber Accessions

Ann Weisgarber lives in Galveston, Texas and is the author of several novels. Her first, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree, is set in the South Dakota Badlands in 1917. It was nominated for England’s 2009 Orange Prize and for the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers. In the United States, The Personal History of Rachel DuPree won the Stephen Turner Award for New Fiction and the Langum Prize for American Historical Fiction. JuVee Productions has optioned the film rights and Viola Davis will play Rachel DuPree. Filming is scheduled for 2018.

Weisgarber’s second novel, The Promise, takes place in 1900 on Galveston Island at the time of America’s deadliest natural disaster. It was shortlisted for the United Kingdom’s Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, was the finalist for the Spur Award for Best Western Historical Fiction, and was a finalist for the Ohioana Book Award for Fiction. Her third book to date, The Glovemaker, was published in 2018 and is set in Utah’s deep canyon country during the winter of 1888.

Weisgarber’s archive preserves many aspects of her writing career: her early works including poetry and short stories, interviews, manuscript drafts, research materials, correspondence with editors, agents, and readers, reviews and publicity material, foreign editions and artifacts. Also present are materials from her tenure as the artist-in-residence at Badlands National Park while she was working on The Personal History of Rachel Dupree.

Weisgarber was born and raised in Ohio and graduated from Wright State University in Dayton with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Work. She earned a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Houston and became a social worker in psychiatric and nursing home facilities and also taught sociology at Wharton County Junior College in Texas.